AtlasEvent 24 November, London: The Collective City

Spoiler Alert: We're greater than the sum of our parts

If you’ve taken part in a morning rave, group run or public art experience; if you’ve joined a campaign to improve your neighbourhood or teamed up to better your workplace; if you’ve shared knowledge or data to bring about a change you want to see, you will know the joy and power of the collective.

“Working together for positive change is a struggle that could unite us all, make us care for each other and create a better world.” – Lynne Segal

Join us on Saturday 24 November at Second Home Spitalfields for a one-day exploration of the power of collective consciousness, feeling, intelligence and action – co-curated with The Point People. It’s as far removed from those future city events about smart streetlights and driverless cars as possible.

It’s poetry and people, and how we can do so much more when we act together.

‘The Collective City’ will offer an alternative view of our future cities, one where how we think, feel and act matters – and why when we do those things together the outcomes are more meaningful, impactful and joyous. (Just see our #CultureFutures ‘FutureLeague’ interviews with Beakerhead and Common Wealth for proof: people, culture and community matter.)

Feel the joy in East London

The day will be split into four parts: Consciousness, Action, Intelligence and Feeling.

Hosted by Atlas Co-founder Cathy Runciman, the session on ‘Collective Intelligence’ has a keynote by Geoff Mulgan, CEO of Nesta, and features Grace Annan Calicott from Projects by If, a technology studio specialising in ethical and practical uses of data, and the awesome Liz Corbin, one half of Materiom. We’re big fans of the circular design expert and her recipes for materials that are useful, natural and simple. Think: where humans and machines meet, the relationship between AI and CI in our cities and collective intelligence for better design, environment and human rights.

“We are taking inspiration from the natural world, and using it to empower collective ingenuity and creativity, with the hope that in turn, that collective intelligence can work together to nourish the planet we all call home.” – Liz Corbin, Materiom

Also joining us are poet, artist and sculptor Robert Montgomery who will be with us for the whole day to lead us through an exercise of collective expression and Lynne Segal, a socialist feminist academic and author of ‘Radical Happiness‘. The cheery activist wants us to embrace the liberation that comes with transformative, collective joy.

Sanderson Jones of Sunday Assembly will be ramping up the joy, as will Bridget Minamore, a poet and journalist who writes about race, class, feminism and pop culture, and Agamemnon Otero MBE. Always smiling, the founder of Energy Garden and community-owned renewable energy initiative Repowering London, the Uruguayan-born, New York-raised community entrepreneur and artist is tackling fuel poverty with renewables – while catalysing the true democratisation of the energy system through people power.

“Collective consciousness is truly powerful. When I began to work with people and communities and cities, a lot of the ideas I had originally conceived went out the window – because the collective is so much more effective in addressing problems.” – Agamemnon Otero

Through a mixture of talks, discussions and activities, we’ll co-create a vision for an urban future that’s more inclusive, equitable and harmonious. See a list of all the speakers here.

AtlasOffer: We have a discount code of 20% for Atlas readers: SHDISCOUNT. Buy tickets here.

When: 10-7pm Sat 24 November 2018 (Note: this has been rescheduled from 20 October as it would have been going against the massive demonstration of collective action that is the People’s Vote March – which is not in the spirit of the aim of the event. Plus, we will be at it!)

The Collective City is part of Second Home’s City Life Festival. Running throughout October, the festival will explore the relationship between urban spaces, communities and identities and champion London as a place of inclusivity and diversity.

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